I guess if this is true, then the Administration is going to jump on the circuit and prove themselves right afterall... Can't wait for them to start talking on MTP, Hardball & Charlie Rose all about this stuff... Afterall if it's true I imagine we're going to start hearing a lot about this... right?

I doubt it Walcrowe because folks won't believe it when they say it. While it'd be interesting to have them go out and forward this information I have a feeling it's not going to happen.

President Bush started his first term with a certain amount of naivete. He had had such success in Texas, using his personal philosophy of resepct, consideration, and inclusion to overcome ages-old partisan differences, he thought he could do the same in Washington.

When he was faced with military action and the Left objected, he did everything they asked him to do. He repeatedly went to the UN and got agreement after agreement from them that we were justified in taking military action against Iraq. He went to Congress over and over again, with the same result. He naively thought that an overwhelming majority of the Sentate voting for invasion, the repeated approval of the United Nations, and a coalition of many countries, would all serve to provide a solid foundation for his actions.

When he got his nose bloodied so many times, when he found that nothing would ever overcome the ingrained partisanship of D.C., when the very same people who supported him in their voting then claimed to have been misled, claimed to have been lied to, claimed they didn't know that military intervention meant military intervention, he learned that nothing makes sense in Washington.

After being shown, in so many ways, the utter shamelessness of the Left when it comes to politics, it would be hard to imagine him believing that any MORE facts will make any more difference. He is dealing with a huge faction whose entire base has a foundation of lies, and which is devoted to those lies. These people have already proven their determination to be unswayed by facts.

We find documents proving...anything? The Left simply dismisses them as plants, as forgeries. We have testimony from eyewitnesses to the disposal of WMD? The Left dismisses them as liars. The Left set the stage for our discovery of WMD three years ago or more. They knew we would find some, because they knew they were there. But they had to convince their followers that there were none, so they started off before we ever invaded with their claims that if we DID find anything, it would have to be fake, be planted.

So I expect the White House to simply announce the facts and not waste a lot of time on trying to convince the unconvinceable. Bush has had ample opportunity to learn what a waste of time it is to treat the Left as if they were decent, rational, people. He's reached out to them, included them, respected them, refused to attack them, and been kicked in the teeth for it. They get rabid when he ignores them, calling him "arrogant" and worse when he simply rises above their pettiness and goes on about the important business of his office, and it enrages them. He is hardly likely to suddenly start acting as if they matter. He will simply explain to the rest of the country what is going on, and let the Left seethe in its impotent rage at being dismissed as too insignificant to bother with.

LOL! I actually just emailed you, because I have been looking online for the news on this. I watched the press conf. but couldnt find anything about it on any of the major news sites!

POTUS has had these documents for 2+ years and gave them to Santorum because he's in serious re-election trouble. The dummies in PA might think that they mean something, but then they elected Santorum in the first place so how bright can they be? Peace

How long before the left says these docs were forged (yet the Dan Rather docs weren't according to them).

Here here Almiranta.
I'm a fairly moderate person in my views, but I do believe that the Left (and this is my opinion based on what I see so Steve, Axis, and TEO can go on an on about this not being true but I believe it to be and so that's my opinion) simply hates the guy for a variety of reasons; none of which they are honest about and that's why he can't ever please them.

IF he did, I'd accuse him of being the submissive in an abusive relationship... to keep going back to the person who abuses you as the Left abuses Bush is absolutely silly.

POTUS has had these documents for 2+ years

As usual, Steve, you're wrong--the Pentagon had the documents, and they were CLASSIFIED. War

It seems counter intuitive for the Pentagon, which is constantly lambasted for not finding the WMD, to have really found them all a long and not tell anyone about it.

Why wait 'til now?

and the report was only finished in April. So it's actually only been classified for a couple months.

Georgia...we know that more than 20,000 boxes containing a million documents were finally released a few months ago. There are a couple of internet sites with Arabic translators that daily update what those documents say.

It's funny, the left doesn't like what those translators are saying. Just like when the CD was discovered of Saddam taping his OWN conversations.

You guys have the "Bush lied" crap down to a mantra level now so it doesn't matter if there is video tape of Saddam himself hiding WMD, you guys won't believe it anyway. I can understand why the administration has just said "move on" because it doesn't matter.

Those that believe the CIA, the British, Russians, UN, etc that said he had them (you know, the sane people) are going to continue to believe.

Those that don't believe the CIA, the British, the czechs, the Russians, the UN, Clinton Administration, Israelis, etc, etc (you know...you guys on the left) will not believe in the documents.

So what's the point.

No Steve...the DOD had them...try again. It also doesn't explain why it wasn't just Santorum that released these but another Senator...why didn't you mention the other Senator..did it not fit nicely into your conspiratorial re-election argument?

According to Senator Santorum and Congressman Hoekstra, the intelligence community had the document, but didn't tellanyone about it.

Judged by the number of leaks of classified documents by individuals within the intelligence community designed to damage the Presidency and undermine the Global War on Terror, it doesn't surprise me that they withheld the document.

As typical of the left, instead of applauding the fact that we have discovered the 500 WMD munitions and have prevented them from getting into the hands of terrorists, Alan Colmes trys to claim it is a ploy to shore up Senator Santorum's campaign.

According to Senator Santorum and Congressman Hoekstra, the intelligence community had the document, but didn't tellanyone about it.

Judged by the number of leaks of classified documents by individuals within the intelligence community designed to damage the Presidency and undermine the Global War on Terror, it doesn't surprise me that they withheld the document.

As typical of the left, instead of applauding the fact that we have discovered the 500 WMD munitions and have prevented them from getting into the hands of terrorists, Alan Colmes trys to claim it is a ploy to shore up Senator Santorum's campaign.

It's official. Saddam Hussein had WMD's.

Now the liberal talking points are that these are weapons procured before 1991, so they don't count!! Hello. They are WMD. They are filled with sarin and mustard gas. Some have degraded. Some are still lethal.

Sean Hannity had a good point. If they are no big deal, why don't we store them in liberals' garages for safe keeping? After all, they're old (and probably leaky), there are only 500 of them (it is reported that it only took about 15 shells to kill 2,000 Kunds), so they won't pose any problem.

The liberals have moved the goalposts again. The only WMD that will qualify as proof that Iraq had a WMD program is if the production date is Mar 2003. Any WMD found that was producted before we liberated Iraq, doesn't count.

A-10. Right, I noticed the spin too. This is the good pre-1991 CHERRY FLAVORED Sarin! Dieing never tasted so good!

Kahn,

Fortunately sarin doesn't age like fine wine. Otherwise our sophisticated liberal friends would be ordering a magnum of Sarin du Blanc 1991.

There are WMDs in Washington--Kerry, Kennedy, Dodd, Dorgan, Boxer, Clitton, Levin, Schumer, Biden, Leakey, Feingold, Feinstein, Reed, Reid, Durbin, Piglosi, Mikulski, Sarbanes, Nelson(FL), Obama, Harkin, et.al.

These kooks will get us all killed if we're not careful...

The reason we didn't want to "expose" Russia, China and France is we need their assistance with Iran. Who in their right mind didn't think Russia, China and France were in bed with Saddam after the Oil for Food scandal?

And frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn what the Left thinks. The documents are FINALLY being transcribed and released. More revelations will be revealed ... count on it.

I don't know where my post went ...

We did not want to "expose" Russia, China, and France because we need their help with Iran. Who in their right mind doesn't believe those three were not in bed with Saddam after the Oil for Food scandal?

And, frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn what the Left says or thinks about this. I am just thrilled some documents are finally being transcribed and released.

Arrrrgh!

Your posts are getting through kimberly, we just have to wait now and then have them show up. :)

I'm with you though, more news in this vein will come out over the following years. As I've said before only history will tell the truth about all of this.

kimberly,

From what I understand, this was not a catured document that was translated. This is a military report of WMD they have found. It was just completed in April 2006, and was previously classified. Portions were recently de-classified and provided to member of the House and Senate Intelligence committees.

This is just a test balloon. Wait till October and we're gonna see a lot more stuff declassified. And for you libs saying this stuff is harmless, can we store it in your basement?

A-10, And honey-mustard gas. It just can't be WMD's. I mean, isn't that one of the primo lefty wacko tenets?

By the way. My grandfather lived until I was about six. That was 1965. In his youth, he had a minor exposure to German mustard gas (that killed some in his unit) in World War One. Well over forty years later he had nose-bleeds and respiratory problems as a result. That stuff is nasty nasty nasty.

Libs - you're welcome. Yah, we know you hate us - but we saved you anyways.

A-10: I knew that. I guess I was just so excited about posting :-) And, there are thousands of pages of documents yet to be transcribed. The proof will continue to pile up.

What's going on here? Where are the liberals claiming they're all fake and this is just an election year ploy? Of course, if the truth is an election year ploy then... well...

Of course, if you listen to the official administration response, which is quoted here, you'll find this (emphases mine):

Offering the official administration response to FOX News, a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions.

"This does not reflect a capacity that was built up after 1991," the official said, adding the munitions "are not the WMDs this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had, and not the WMDs for which this country went to war."

Sharpton questioned their truthfullness on O'Reily.

Go to a liberal website Jonathon...they are saying they are fakes all over the place.

This is how liberals do things. Reality never enters the question for them. They just keep changing the standards, changing the rules, moving the goal posts, etc, etc....it's what they did in 2000 with the counting of the chads, it's what they have done with this war, it's what they tried to do in Ohio in 2004.

It's how they work. They are NEVER about what is good for America, it's about getting back in power and nothing short of that. This is why it's been 30+ years since half the country gave them the vote to run this country.

They are scary, scary people.

At the end of the day, when Russia, the UN, Israel, the British, CIA, Czechs, Joranians, Clinton administration are all saying WMD existed I find it almost impossible that all of these agencies would be wrong / lied. Almost impossible. But there are plenty of kooks out there that want to believe Bush lied. Many of them here on this website.

I mean please, why would all of those agencies lie (many of them not even our friends)?

More than likely WMD were found in the first 6 months of the war as was reported time and again in the news only to later state "turned out not to be WMD." Most likely it was but because the security situation there was so crappy they had to make the militias and others believe that no WMD actually existed. If the militias and others got a hold of Sarin gas or other wmd's....bad, bad news.

I'm sure more of this stuff is going to come out.

Will the kooky liberals finally believe all of those gov'ts, all of those agencies, even the Clinton Administration or will they continue the absolutely silly "Bush lied" comments with no proof whatsoever?

My gut says they will continue to be anti-USA and continue to be the absolute garbage they are.

From another blog: "I would love to have W in front of a whole season of Congress.
He would take a shell out of a bag and put it on the podium and say, "Gentlemen and Ladies, this is a friggin WMD. Its full of Sarin and would kill everyone in this building. I want everyone who said that I lied to get down on their knees and thank God I am a forgiving man!"

"Ted you start first!"

Time for another round of "good news from Iraq" that once again failed to make an appearance here on B4B (Not surprisingly)

----------------------

8 U.S. troops charged with murder

Investigation focuses on killing of civilian in Hamdaniya, Iraq

U.S. troops are accused of killing 54-year-old Hasham Ibrahim Awad on April 26.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Seven U.S. Marines and a Navy corpsman were charged with murder Wednesday in the April killing of an Iraqi civilian near the town of Hamdaniya, Col. Stewart Navarre said at Camp Pendleton, California.

All eight also face charges of kidnapping, conspiracy, larceny, assault and housebreaking, or unlawfully entering a dwelling. Five of the men also are accused of making a false official statement, according to information released to the media.

Navarre declined to list specific counts against each man. (Watch recounting of incident by victim's brother -- 2:40)

The eight -- members of the Pendleton-based 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment -- were taken out of Iraq and detained at the base after accusations that they killed Hasham Ibrahim Awad, 54, a disabled veteran of Iraq's war with Iran in the 1980s.

The troops, all assigned to Kilo Company, allegedly removed Awad from his home and shot him to death.

Navarre, chief of staff for Marine Corps bases west of the Mississippi River, said the men were charged after Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, senior commander at Pendleton, reviewed the findings of a criminal inquiry by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
Charging document gives account

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the charging document, which gives the following account:

The troops were staking out an intersection looking for people placing explosives along the road. When no one came, Magincalda, Thomas, Pennington and Bacos stole a shovel and an AK-47 from a nearby home and went looking for an insurgent named Saleh Gowad.

They couldn't find Gowad, so they went into a house belonging to Awad and kidnapped him. Magincalda, Thomas, Pennington and Bacos forced Awad to the ground, tied his feet and took him to their hideout and placed him in a hole.

Hutchins, Thomas and Shumate fired M-16 rifles at Awad while Jackson and Jodka fired M-249 automatic weapons, killing him.

Bacos then fired the AK-47 into the air to expend some shell casings. Magincalda collected the casings and put them by the body, the document said. Pennington cleaned prints off the AK-47 and put it in Awad's hands.

Hutchins, the top-ranking Marine, told his men to make false statements and on April 28 submitted "a false written report regarding the factors and circumstances related to Awad's death," according to the document.
Article 32 proceedings

Sattler will decide whether and how to proceed with preliminary hearings known in the military as Article 32 proceedings, the equivalent of a civilian grand jury, Navarre said. Those in turn could lead to courts-martial for some or all of the men.

If premeditated murder charges are referred, Sattler would determine whether the accused soldiers could face the death penalty, Navarre said.

The charges were filed Wednesday morning, and each man has retained civilian counsel, Navarre said. Key members of Congress were briefed Wednesday on the specifics of the charges, he said.

"It is important to note that the charges and specifications are accusations against the individual, and the accused is presumed innocent," he said.

Four additional Marines also had been sent to Pendleton and placed on pretrial restriction. They have been released, Navarre said. "I cannot discuss those Marines further as the matter is still under investigation," he said.

The other eight are under "medium confinement," which allows them to move about the detention facility without constraints, Navarre said.

"The Marine Corps takes allegations of wrongdoing by its members very seriously and is committed to thoroughly investigating such allegations," Navarre told reporters.
Father of accused 'incredulous'

Phil Jackson, the father of accused 22-year-old Lance Cpl. Tyler A. Jackson, told CNN he watched Navarre's news conference on television.

"I'm shocked. Incredulous. These guys are innocent. These Marines are innocent until proven guilty, as the U.S. Marine Corps said today. I certainly hope and believe that the Marines will adhere to that in their investigation," the father said in a statement.

"Let's not assume until the process runs its course. It is only now that the alleged evidence will become available to the military and private counsels involved," said Jackson, who lives in Tracy, California.

Maj. Haythan Faraj, a lawyer for Cpl. Trent D. Thomas, told The Associated Press that at least some of the information given by the troops "was coerced out of them" by investigators.

David Brahms, a lawyer for Lance Cpl. Robert B. Pennington, told Reuters, "It's preposterous to suggest that eight Marines got together to plan a murder."
Family's allegations

Awad's family told CNN the Marines were pressuring him to act as an informer, hoping to learn who was planting roadside bombs and carrying out other attacks around Hamdaniya, on Baghdad's western outskirts.

The Americans carried Awad from his home to the main road through town, said his brother, Sadoon.

Police turned over Awad's body to relatives the next day, along with an assault rifle and shovel his family says were planted to make him look like an insurgent.

U.S. troops offered $2,000 in compensation for his brother's death, then $10,000, said Sadoon Awad. He said he considered the offers an attempt to buy his family's silence.

"But I refused," he told CNN. "I told them, 'I don't need money.' I told them, 'The truth is that you took my brother, you tortured him, and you killed him, although he was disabled and old.' "

Iraqi officials brought the allegation to Marine commanders at a May 1 meeting, prompting the commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer, to call for an investigation.

Some Marines have admitted the circumstances of the man's death were staged, a military officer with direct knowledge of the Navy's preliminary findings told CNN earlier this month.

Investigators recently returned Awad's body after exhuming it and taking it to the United States for tests, his brother said. He said he expects to attend the trial, but did not know whether he would be called as a witness.

Meanwhile, defense lawyers have decried information leaks from the probe, while their clients are being held in pretrial confinement.
Fourth soldier charged

The incident is unrelated to a criminal investigation into the killings of 24 Iraqi civilians in the Anbar province town of Haditha in November.

Investigations into both incidents spurred the commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Mike Hagee, to lecture Marines on what he called "the American way of war" during a trip to Iraq in early June.

Separately, a fourth soldier from the 101st Airborne Division was charged Wednesday in connection with the shooting deaths of three detainees during an operation in Salaheddin province in May, the military said.

Spc. Juston R. Graber, 20, was charged with premeditated murder, attempted premeditated murder, conspiracy to commit murder and making a false official statement, according to a written statement. (Full story)

The military announced Monday that an Army sergeant and two other soldiers had been charged in the case.

Okay, here we go:

We found the WMDs.
Saddam is gone.
The Iraqis have had their elections.
The insurgency is in its "last throes."

What are we still doing there?

Time for Axis to deny that more WMD was found in which he has not argument and thus puts up another report in an attempt to disparage our troops.

Way to go Canuck...way to go.

Gee, I don't know Wyckyd Sceptre...maybe to make sure that everything we've done with our coalition partners is seen through to the end.

It would be awfully silly to leave now when things haven't settled yet would it not?

The American Revolution took 8 years. We are on year 3 here....sometimes things take a little time.

:)

Well as you know Warriornation, to a liberal, the only good soldier is a jailed soldier... or a soldier fighting against the US.

Warriornation:
People seem to forget that war is HARD.

SeesThroughIt,

Just who is this nameless DoD official who seems to be spouting liberal talking points?

Obi - Wan Lib - obi:

"These aren't the WMD's you're lookings for. We can go about our business. Move along."

Wether these were the SPECIFIC weapons we were lookign for is completely and utterly irrelevant. The treaty - the CEASE FIRE not cessation of war - with Saddam was predicated around, among other things which were also violated, him giving up ALL - and in - every single one - as in - keeping none - of his WMD's. Period. He violated the terms of the treaty> And in more ways than just that.

"Gentlemen and Ladies, this is a friggin WMD. Its full of Sarin and would kill everyone in this building. I want everyone who said that I lied to get down on their knees and thank God I am a forgiving man!"

UH...

Offering the official administration response to FOX News, a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions.

"This does not reflect a capacity that was built up after 1991," the official said, adding the munitions "are not the WMDs this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had, and not the WMDs for which this country went to war."

I don't remember any stipulation being set that wmd's had to be created after 1991, sseesthroughit and axis should supply this if thats what they believe. Also, were these 500 mnuitions in the Deulfer report? If not, can you libs agree that there might be other things not in the report, and that it is full of holes?

You folks aren't real bright, are ya?

Ofcourse we knew he HAD WMDs, we gave him the technology, and the rest of the world was shipping him mustard, VX, Sarin, etc. The point was that nothing we have found is post '91. We knew what he had prior to that, the WHOLE world knew what he had, infact.

You are now dropping the threshold of finding stockpiles of WMD from 45 minute nuclear strikes, now to 500 pre '91 dual chamber munition shells, with sarin and mustard gas that was flawed, and had a shelf-life of a few weeks when it was made.

Who is grasping at straws now? Why would Saddam ship everything else out of the country, but leave a few crumbs for the US to find...seems you all wanna harp on the Syrian road-show, yet you can ignore your "facts" to believe that he conveniently forgot a whole cache of his WMD munitions.

I'm sure no matter what happens, you ditto-heads will continue to try and justify your illegal war, so you don't feel so bad about bombing innocent civilians, and causing the explosion of violence we see today, way to help-out OBL.

I believe that it's the fact that hard core soldier hating leftists like Third Eye Open are not capable of shame that makes them this way. It was them that said Saddam had no WMD, now it's Of course we all knew he had WMD. It's gone from hypocrisy to outright lying.

Third Eye Open-
You just can't admit you guys were wrong,and if you knew all along that there were WMD's, sounds to me like some Dems were the one's misleading the country...hmmm, big surprise? Not really. I'm really tired of people blaming the Bush Administration and saying they went in under false pretense, when all the Senate, Congress, etc., had the same info and voted to go to war right along with him...It would help your cause if the Left could get honest once in a while and admit they are the one's that have been lying to the public! I hope, politically speaking, Freedom1 lets you have it right in the kisser!

To all you bullshitting libs.....

Define "useable"......

While the munitions found were degraded, THEY WERE STILL LETHAL!

How level of honesty are you willing to hold Saddam to?

What else has he lied about?

He still said they were all destroyed......

Still after all is said and done the UN's own report has listed 1000s and 1000s of munitions and precursor agents un-acounted for.

'nuff said.....

With due respect, the reason why the media is "ignoring" Santorum's ridiculous performance is because it's just that -- ridiculous.

The shelf life of these weapons is about 2 years. They had already turned into useless sludge AGES ago, and are completely irrelevant. Of course they had them. We have the receipts from when Donald Rumsfeld sold them to Saddam!

And if the existence of these degraded weapons are news to anyone, well then you haven't been paying attention, or you've been drinking the FAUX News kool-aid FAR too much and you need to detox with a healthy dose of truthiness.

I am saddened frankly, that you were wrong about Iraq. Wretchedly, wretchedly WRONG. If you folks on the rightwing had been correct, at least our soldier's considerably painful sacrifice would have not been in vain.

But you were NOT correct, and the responsibility for this mess is squarely on your shoulders, AND on the shoulders of Democrats who trusted you rather than their good Liberal instincts that Bush/Cheney et al were lying jerks who don't DESERVE our trust. But ultimately, YOU put into power reckless men, blinded by greed, voluntary ignorance, and arrogance, and if you had any sense of honor or humility in the face of the suffering you've caused, you might have the decency and simple grace to apologize and go slink back under the rock from which you came.

Sorry, but your fifteen minutes are up. You're over. Short of stealing yet another election, much of your misguided Neocon movement will be thankfully out of power by November, and we can get down to actually SOLVING these problems, and doing things like safe guarding our ports, catching Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, finishing the job in Afghanistan, getting Mexico and our corporations to start sharing the burden of fixing the illegal immigration problem, pulling the 37 million Americans who live in poverty out of the awful conditions you helped put them in with our trashed economy and tax cuts for the ultra-rich, getting real health care for our kids, getting our water and air clean again (something which USED to be a conservative value), and actually balancing a budget.

Democrats,we told you he had WMD. you said Bullcrap. We said time will answer that question. You said Bullcrap. We said 1000's of humans died already from these "non-existing" WMD. You said well maybe so but we gave them to him. Sen. Rick Santorum said 5000 shells were found, where only 15 is need to kill 5000 people, 500 would wipe out every single person in Cincinnati Ohio. You said Bush stole the 2000 elections, besides they were planted and besides they are old, beside, besides, besides

How quaint.

Same old story, can't justify your actions, so try and re-write history.

You dolts are off your rockers if you think anyone is saying he NEVER had WMDs, we know he did, what do you think all the years of inspections were for? Quit trying to confuse a tiny fraction of degraded munition shells for the spectre of a "smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud" not a smoking gun in the form of nearly useless CW.

You ditto-heads are basing a war of half a trillion dollars, with no forseeable exit, and escalating violence on stuff that was made prior to '91, and which 12 years of sanctions/inspections had all but destroyed.

Should we be invaded because we have stockpiles of white phosphorus, which we have used in battle, we know that happened, does that set the stage for unilateral invasion, and regime change here?

Quit trying to confuse the situation, take a look at what we found in '91, prior to the inspections he was producing sub-par CW and BW, when we destroyed thousands of tons of Sarin, at best it had a few years of shelf-life, this was 12 years ago. The inspections found no re-constituted system, infact if you recall, it takes a massive industrial facility and infrastructure to produce this stuff enmasse, yet 12 years of intense inspections provides not even an inkling of this massive reconstitution...quit making things up, and listen to YOUR OWN republican lead reports.

I live in PA and look forward to voting this idiot out of office in November. Also, my good senator revealed parts of the memo that were classified....will there be a DoJ investigation against him? We are at war and he did reveal classified information or does this rule only apply to information that is unflattering to our Leader?

Hmm...sanctions...
At that time, Saddam was hapilly building his palaces while said sanctions were enforced.
That shows you how effective the sanctions and UN inspections were...

Repeat after me:

The Cease - fire had conditions. Saddam Violated those conditions. THerefore, the ceasefire ended. THere. Wasn't that easy?

I keep seeing so many posts here saying that chemical munitions have a shelf life of 2 years, but all my training in the Chemical Corps of the US Army would disagree. We are still destroying munitions at Chemical Munitions Armories across the states that were made during 1940s, and they are still very lethal. Anyone thinking that these munitions are not dangerous are highly mistaken, since I know they would not put THEIR life on the line by holding onto any of the munitions found in Iraq.

GOD bless the troops and all they give up for our freedoms!!!!!

Rumsfeld sold these munitions to Saddam during the Iraq/Iran war. They were buried in the desert along the Iranian border to be used in that war, then forgotten about when that war ended. bush's war in Iraq was stupid and unnecessary. Peace

TEO,
Don’t have facts? Just lie about it, as usual.
“Sarin, at best it had a few years of shelf-life,”
Sarin has a “shelf life” of a few hours. The components of sarin are DF 2 and the alcohols cyclohexanol and isoproponal (shelf life = limitless), as long as the weapon is intact the chemicals are not mixed and the weapon is lethal.

I'm not so sure that it takes massive industrial facilities to produce WMD in a quantity that would be sufficient to kill alot of people. When American troops captured Fallujah in 2004 they found a chemical weapons lab. Clearly what we found was not the WMD we thought we would find. Our intellegence was wrong, as has been admitted on numerous occasions. We need to find out why it was wrong and to improve. The various "Bush lied" diatribes are a distraction.

5by5

The Democrats were looking at the same intellegence that President Bush was looking at when they passed the resolution authorizing the use of force. Senator Clinton was even on record as saying that the intellegence they were getting from the White House was materially consistent, to paraphrase her, with what they had while they were in the White House. They were all looking at the same intellegence and reached the same conclusions. Besides George "slam dunk" Tenet was a Clinton appointee. As my previous post states, the intellegence was wrong. The WMD are not "there." At least they are not where they thought they would be. Perhaps they were moved to Syria or elsewhere or perhaps the conventional wisdom is correct and they did not exist. I actually hope the conventional wisdom is correct. We need to work on correcting these intellegence failures. "Bush lied" and elaborate conspiracy theories involving "neo conservatives" are a distraction.

RYan,

you prove the MYTH of the "illegal war" argument offered time and again by Dummyrats.

They forget the original cease fire agreement signed by Saddam had conditions. If those conditions were violated "ANY MEMBER NATION" could resume hostilities to force Saddam into cooperation.

What did we get from the Dummyrats following that agreement???

try 18 more resolutions with the U.N., a few lobbed cruise-missiles at SUSPECTED terror camps and an aspirin factory.

Oh, and let's not forget the bombings of "Saddam's WMDs" that made headline news to distract us from the intern scandal......

...you know the ones that supposedly destroyed ALL his WMDs as claimed by several libs.....and Saddam!

steve resumes the lie that we sold Saddam chemical weapons.....never happened! We sold him chemicals that could be refined into weapons, but Saddam needed the facilities to do so......

The chemical weapon attacks on the Kurds and Iranians were proven to have NOT been a result of the chemicals we sold him!!! - proof is in the U.N. record!!!

Libs, it's hard to argue with facts.....your spun bullshit is getting old and the more WMDs we find what arguments will be offered next?!?

Oh, y'all haven't used the "they were planted" in a while........

Tom Shipley

You can hear the desperation in their posts. WMD's found in Iraq! Thank you, Jesus! It doesn't matter a fig if they are in useable condition or not.

Hallelujah! Bush was right all along, and in their eyes, his invasion & occupation of Iraq has been validated. They will grab at any straw just to keep their hero from looking foolish. LOL.

Canadian Observer

The main stream media has been largely silent on this issue, with the exception of Fox News. They have either buried this story, ignored it, or tried to spin it as Rick Santorum trying to save his political career. This find does not bolster the case for the left. This find does not necesarily mean that Bush was "right." A compelling could be made agains the war in Iraq. Also, regarding the WMD issue, there remain some unanswered questions about what may have been transferred to Syria. If the WMD we thought we would find were moved to Syria, this is not a por-Bush argument. In fact, it is one of the most compelling anti-Bush arguments we can make. This would mean we failed to achieve one of the primary objectives of the war.

Hey everyone, America hater 5by5 wants to start a war with Pakistan. Since he claims democrats will get bin Laden and Omar he is advocating an attack on a nuclear and muslim nation. Do the rest of you far left wing fantatical kooks agree?

Ratboy,

You are a complete moron. Worse than that, you are a gullible moron.

Sarin has to be made persistent by oil or other petroleum products, these additives are what degrade the shelf-life of sarin.

now, stay with me, and i'll talk slow. The sarin Saddam had made looked like cola, not colorless and odorless as the pure stuff does, infact in 1989 they had to destroy 40 tons of the stuff, because it went bad. The CIA put the shelf-life of his last stockpile at about a couple years, at most, and in some cases a few weeks.

You have no damn clue what you're talking about, except to troll the conservative "news" sites to get their opinion on something, you are nothing more than a small child, who has wandered into a conversation you know nothing about...someone change his diaper please!

"WHETHER OR NOT SARIN STOCKS REMAIN VIABLE

OVER THE LONG TERM, ALL BELIEVE THAT IRAQ

HAS A SIZEABLE CW STOCKPILE THAT IS

DURABLE ENOUGH TO SURVIVE SEVERAL YEARS OF

STORAGE IF NOT DESTROYED BY COALITION

FORCES."

you see, the CIA knew the stuff he was making had a shelf-life, but even a shelf-life of a few years wouldn't last 12 years, debunked again!

http://www.fas.org/irp/gulf/cia/960715/72569.htm

rYan,

You're silly, the US can't unilaterally claim that the cease-fire is over, it takes a resolution from the SecCouncil, which we didn't get...see wasn't that easy?

EXCEPT TEO we didn't know if he was still making it or not.

Debunked again.

You see, to latch on to your pathetic views and those of the left you have to make this monumental leap of faith.

You have to say that the CIA lied, the British intelligence lied, the Russians lied (not exactly our friends, why would they help us), the French lied, the UN lied, the Clinton administration lied, the Jordanians lied, the Czechs lied, the Saudis lied, and on and on and on.

I'm sorry, but that is just crap. But it doesn't surprise me that you tinfoil hat moonbats believe in a worldwide conspiracy that they would all say he had WMD, would pass resolution after resolution and then just say "just kidding".

Isn't it great to watch all of these liberals today continue to be in such denial. They want Iraq not to have WMD, they wanted Saddam to remain in power and brutalize his own people, they don't care that one of our greatest allies in Israel is threatened daily.

What the hell happened to the Democratic party? What a joke it has become.

Warriornation,

Stop trying to push your reality, its fantasyland, and your own senators and house members said so!

Call my views pathetic, but that isn't an argument, but the facts I have presented are; you see, it seems to me that the more this illegal war grinds on, the more embarassing it is for your ideological viewpoint. You can't make a precedent for further unilateral regime building if your initial try is deemed illegal, abusive, and unjust by history; so you have to attempt to re-write that history, and demoinize anyone with opposing views so that the next time your side gets a sliver of power you can point backwards and show how right you were. Well guess what buddy, we aren't gonna buy it, we are going to vehamently smack down your lies and distortions at every corner, we will allow you and your ilk no refuge from truth; we will seek you out in all forms and shine the light of facts on the shadows you and your kind live in.

We will not fight anymore of your wars, and we will not cower at the feet of your fake-patriotism, which has killed 2500 of our bravest and brightest. Your anti-american sentiments are false, and hollow!

Poor TEO, once again reduced to babbling ad-hominum.

Pesky facts;
Iraq reported to David Kay that it had adopted the binary method of producing and delivering sarin. This requires the shell to be spun rapidly to mix the components prior to impact. Iraq first told UNSCOM that it had produced an estimated 250 tons of tabun and 812 tons of sarin. In 1995, however, Iraq changed these estimates and stated that it had produced only 210 tons of tabun and 790 tons of sarin. For this reason, it is still uncertain how much tabun and sarin Iraq actually manufactured.

TEO is exactly what you're talking about Warrior, falling over himself spinning truth until it's unreconizable. Pathetic.

"While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible Indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter, a policy ISG attributes to Baghdad’s desire to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against it should WMD be discovered."
That little gem is right from the Iraq Survey Group.
I've got to hand it to Santorum though -- he's still grasping at straws -- even as he continues to sink.
It was an especially nice touch to send Hoekstra along with him. Hoekstra's lead position on the HSIC seems to provide some authenticity to his claim.
Hoekstra runs in the totally GOP friendly 2nd District of Michigan -- thus any negative fallout from this blatant attempt to mislead will not be too damaging to Hoekstra -- whatever happens.

Ratboy,

You are seriously retarded, arent you?

Read your own quote, does it mention WHEN Saddam was making those munitions?...Yup thats right, just as I said, his munitions were all from pre '91 sanctions/inspections.

You have no clue what you're talking about still, just blathering on, hoping someone will jump in to save your sorry ass with some facts that make sense, and back-up your stupid claims, but unfortunately, neither you or Warrior have the fatcs on your side; Sorry Buck-o.

here are a few choice snippets from the kay report you were talking about:

"After the war, the ISG concluded—contrary to the Intelligence Community’s pre-war assessments—that Iraq had unilaterally destroyed its undeclared CW
stockpile in 1991 and that there were no credible indications that Baghdad had resumed production of CW thereafter."

"Finally, the ISG noted that the only CW it recovered were weapons manufactured before
the first Gulf War"

"The Intelligence Community’s errors on Iraq’s chemical weapons were, not unlike its errors on Iraq’s nuclear and biological programs, heavily influenced by a single factor. In the case of chemical weapons, the factor was the Community’s Chemical Warfare Summary Finding The Intelligence Community erred in its 2002 NIE assessment of Iraq’s alleged chemical warfare program. The Community’s substantial overestimation of Iraq’s chemical warfare program was due chiefly to flaws in analysis and the paucity of quality information collected. over-reliance on dubious imagery indicators."

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/wmd/pdf/chapter1_fm.pdf

It does not matter when he made them. He denied he had them. And HE WAS LIEING. And you TEO are a fool.

Time for TEO to move the goalpost, again.

He didn’t have any.
He had them but he destroyed them.
He had them, he didn’t destroy them, but they "timed out".
He had them, he didn’t destroy them, they didn’t time out, but he didn’t make more.

TEO does the Safety Dance!

Bwahahahaha

Ratboy and Kahn,

By your threshold, all he needed was a scowl and some handguns to invade.

he didn't have nuclear weapons
he didn't have CW
he didn't pose an imminent threat to the US

Anymore excuses to justify an illegal, unilateral war?

Isn't it easy-mac time for you children?

LOL!

LOSERS!

Turd-eye,

If it's illegal, bring charges. All mouth, no substance as usual.

He had Chemical Weapons, did you forget your insipid argument from the post? "You dolts are off your rockers if you think anyone is saying he NEVER had WMDs"

Who said he had nuclear weapons? Another of your straw men?

the President said if we wait until the threat is imminent, it's too late.

Calling it unilateral is disrespectful of:

England
South Korea
Italy
Poland
Ukraine
Georgia
Australia
Romania
Japan
Denmark
Bulgaria
El Salvador
Azerbaijan
Latvia
Albania
Lithuania
Slovakia
Czech Republic
Armenia
Bosnia
Estonia
Macedonia
Kazakhstan
Norway
Netherlands
Afghanistan
Colombia
Costa Rica
Dominican Republic
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Honduras
Hungary
Iceland
Kuwait
Marshall Islands
Micronesia
Nicaragua
Palau
Panama
Philippines
Rwanda
Singapore.
Solomon Islands
Spain
Tonga
Turkey
Uganda
Uzbekistan

Bane,

I don't think you realize that I don't bring charges against a nation, but it was still an illegal war, if we didn't have approval to do it, and the action of unilateral war is against the UN charter, then it is against international law, time will tell what if any sanctions result from it, but either way, the action was illegal.

What is your point, we all knew he had WMDs, we know the corporations who sent them to him, hell even we sent him anthrax, noone is saying he never had anything, but it was destroyed during the '91 invasion and the subsequent inspections, read the multitude of reports which said the same thing; now who is having a bout of wishful thinking...go ahead, read the reports man, im sure you will enjoy the same refrain they all sing.

We have about 150,000 troops in iraq, the next largest contingent was UK, followed by Poland with 2500, Spain who had 1300 there, well up until recently, they will be leaving the scene, along with autralia, and japan...that leaves countries like Honduras, El Salvadore, Dominican Republic...a few hundred troops here and there, but they aren't providing security, they are all doing something else, like engineering and road building.

Take a look at how the civilians of the central american countries felt about being thrust into a war for America, after how benevolent we have been to them. LOL!

Our supporters are countries who are either in heavy debt to us, or are looking for support in other areas, The western nations with viable military forces are bugging out. japan announced last week they are pulling their troops...and yet we are putting more of them in...so what does that say about your coalition of the willing?

Azerbaijan...LOL...they are ruled by an iron fisted tyrant who kills political dissidents, and has their bodies dumped in the woods...although we did just get a sweetheart natural gas pipeline deal with them...hmmm, wonder how that happened?

Do the Soloman islands even have a military...and Rwanda...what the hell are they going ot do...provide gazelle to trip-up IEDs?

Quit trying to make this into something it isn't, we drudged up all the support we could muster, and we still have 80% of the troops there...don't lie to me or yourself man, its not healthy.

TEO; I think I get it now. The war was illegal because France, Russia, and China opposed it. France, Russia, and China had huge business dealings with the Iraqi government. They were never going to support us no matter what. Bottom line: they placed their economic interests ahead of American security interests. Thanks for reminding me of why I have such contempt for that organization known as the UN. I'm actually ashamed that one of the reasons given for Operation Iraqi Freedom was to bring Iraq into compliance with UN resolutions. Instead of declaring it illegal a better argument would be that it did not serve American interests. An argument could be made that it ran against American interests. I agree with Bane, referring to the war as unilateral is extremely disrespectful to our soverign allies who have done all they could and where they could do it to help us along the way.

One of the reasons cited for removing the former Iraqi government was its ongoing support of Islamic Extremist terroris. Iraq's desire to acquire WMD, its ongoing support for terrorism, and collapsing sanctions are largely what led former heads of the ISG Charles Duelfer and David Kay to support the decision to remove the former Iraqi government. Yes, the ISG did conclude that Iraq did not have stockpiles of WMD. This is the conventional wisdom and I really hope it is correct, however, the ISG went on to say they were unable to complete the investigation into what was transferred into Syria and they expressed a desire to complete this investigation should the security situation permit. I think this aspect of the investigation needs to be completed before we can reach any final conclusions.

We can count on the UN to do two things extremely well. Those are anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism. Israel and America are the two greatest nations to ever grace planet earth. /i would not trust the UN for anything.

B. Poster,

I agree, we need to follow all the leads, but at this point we are against a brick wall, unless ofcourse Syria has a change of mind sometime soon.

The UN resolution 1441 was plain and simple, either Saddam let the inspectors back in, or he would face consequences, we decided we knew better, and took it upon ourselves to rectify the situation. Last I checked that was called vigilantism, and no matter which way you sliced it, it's illegal.

I don't bemoan the ouster of Saddam, the man was a tyrant, and deserves the lowest level of Hell for what he did to his own people, but that doesn't mean we get to remake the rules we don't like, just because we happen to be the hyper-power. If we were smart we could have used our clout to rally a true international coalition, with muslim faces at the spear-point, instead of throwing our men and women into a sandbox where we don't speak the language or understand culture and customs. This is just another example of the US throwing caution to the wind, assuming we could just do some clean-up afterwards and throw some money their way to shut up the family of "collateral damage", but instead we are stuck in a war we don't know how to get out of, just like Britain didn't know how to get out of it last century. This whole time Iran and NK have taken the opportunity to punch us while we are down, and we can't properly respond to these real threats.

The sacrifices of the other nations is admirable, but promises of debt relief, entrance into trade agreements and memberships doesn't strike me as "willing" so much as less than violently coerced. How can we honestly accept help from a place like Azerbaijan, while we are taking down one dictatorship, but rewarding another, what kind of message does that send? "As long as you're helping us out, we don't care what you're doing to your own people", infact that was the exact message we sent to Saddam, before he was no longer our anti-Iranian lapdog.

Don't chastise me for believing that a truly benevolent country does things for the charity of the act, not because the externality happens to be something beneficial to us...may I remind you of the situation in Afghanistan, where even our pro-American government there, is now saying that we have overstepped our boundries, and there needs to be changes.

If people weren't dying wholesale, I would laugh about the hypocrisy of the whole situation.

it was still an illegal war says TEO.

Let's just wait for a 'legal' war. Let's subpoena OBL and Mullah Omar. You guys just love the trial lawyers. Why don't you SUE GW and the Congress? You fight all your wars with the courts and lawyers. Welcome to the real world where wars are fought with brave soldiers on battlefields and not some courtroom.

it was still an illegal war says TEO.

Let's just wait for a 'legal' war. Let's subpoena OBL and Mullah Omar. You guys just love the trial lawyers. Why don't you SUE GW and the Congress? You fight all your wars with the courts and lawyers. Welcome to the real world where wars are fought with brave soldiers on battlefields and not some courtroom.

Perhaps when there is a huge smoking hole where a US city once stood, you might come to your senses about how dangerous the world is and realize the lawyers will not help you. Unless, of course, it is your city that becomes a smoldering hole.

i love when the "illegal war" card is played. it makes me laugh b/c its so pathetic.

Playing the "illegal war" card always makes me laugh. its so pathetic. keep it coming libs, you are making my sides hurt from all of the chuckles!

LaMano,

If all you have is visions of craters in your brain, then step aside and let the grown-ups talk about real issues. If you remember correctly the mushroom cloud meme was the same crap Der LEader and his motlety crew were pushing back in 2003, and look how wonderful everything turned out in Iraq.

We aren't going to fight anymore of your illegal wars, and your pasty, fake-patriotism does nothing but make you look even more gullible than you do already, so stow it sailor!

Hammy,

Can you provide a lucid argument as to why it WAS legal?

let me remind you of a few non-starters:

1. Our congress' resolutions and bills go as far as international waters, not an inch more; so anything we decree, if not backed up by SecCouncil approval, is still illegal.

2. SecCouncil Res. 1441 was setup to allow the inspectors back in, only if that was not followed was there room for the approval of military intervention on our part, we never let that resolution finish, and even removed a subsequent resolution for intervention, but it was removed since we couldn't stomach an international veto of our actions, before we went and did something illegal.

3. The cease-fire from '91 still needed SecCouncil approval beofre we acted upon it, we never sought that approval, so therefore it was not sanctioned.

4. Standard material; no WMDs and no Imminent Threat, therefore...still not legal.

anything else you wanna talk about?

TEO: A few of comments about your last post. You refer to the US as a hyper-power. The USA is a very powerful country but it is no hyper power. The United States is checked by: 1.)Russia's nuclear arsenal and by China's vast numbers. 2.)It is heavily dependent on the natrual resources of others to operate its economy. Its suppliers of these resources can and do act to place a check on the US. Often times these suppliers do not have America's best interest at heart. 3.)The US has a massive debt load. This places a check on the US. While the United States is a powerful country, it is no hyper power. While the US is no hyper power, if we suggest that it is, it becomes much easier to vilify the country.

Hans Blix noted Saddam's unwillingness to comply fully with UN resoultion 1441. It was this resolution along with numerous others that helped lead to the decison to oust Saddam Hussein. "Vigilantism" would best describe Saddam's support of terrorism and his insane desire to destroy Israel. The term "naked greed" comes to mind when I think about the actions of Russia, China, and France. American actions, while perhaps not the best course of action, are defensive in nature. The UN is a worthless organization, as long as it allows criminals to write the laws. You want to use our "clout." We don't have the clout you seem to think we have. We need them as badly as they need us, perhaps we need them more. The Kuwaitis understood the dangers posed by Iraq, this is why they allowed us to use their land as a staging area when invading Iraq. We underestimated the difficutly of an Iraq invasion. Lets not compound this by overestimating our clout. We did not remake any rules. we acted in a manner that we thought prudent for our self defense. Personally I think getting the terrorists to committ resources to Iraq probably has a geat deal to do with why the US homeland has not been attacked by terrorists, as of this wrting. I suspect had we not removed Saddam we would be dealing with a much stronger Iraqi enemy today, as well Iran and North Korea. This is not known, of course. There is no question we have had to divert resources to Iraq, so has the enemy.

We did not "violently coerce" anyone. Whether or not they want to enter into trade agreements with us is their soverign right. Nations can and do make agreements with one another. Potentially becoming a major target for terrorists is far more risky than having to pay a loan back to America. They likely figured, if they did not step in to assist us, they would likely be attacked by terrorists or their Marxists allies some day. How can we accept help from a country like Azerbaijan? I'm a little confused about this too. I probably would not have pushed for Democracy in Iraq. I suspect I would have either sought to colonize it outright or push for a pro-American government. It is clear their culture will have to be remade. Western culture and the culture of Islamic Extremism/Marxism simply cannot exist side by side. That being said, a pro-American democracy in the heart of the middle east would be a great thing. A better question to ask might be how can Azerbaijan honestly accept help from the US? I suspect what leads to arrangements, such as this, is the old adage "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Also, some countries will assist the US to get deals from the US. I would assert others coerce the US as much or more so than the US doe the coercing. It works both ways.

Saddam was NEVER our lap dog. A former Reagan Administration official, Henry Kissinger I think it was, said it best when he said regarding the Iran/Iraq war (to roughly paraphrase) "Its a pity they both can't lose." He was quite correct. Saddam would later turn on us.

I think you're correct. Countries do not act to be benevolent. They act in what they percieve to be their best interests. The Afghan government is a soverign government. They are free to criticize us. They will set the boundaries for whatever changes must be made and we will likely negotiate something that is acceptable to all of us. I read Karzai's remarks. I actually find myself in agreement with much of what he said. A very compelling case could be made against the Iraq war, however, when one spouts off things like Iraq war is "illegal" or "bush lied" diatribes they forefiet their credibility. Perhaps Iraq was the wrong battle field but the fact is we are now engaged in a battle with an enemy who wants to destroy us, cannot be reasoned with, and is capable of defeating us, if not outright enslaving us. We need to determine how to move forward. Right now the plan appears to be to train the Iraqi security forces to take over more and more of the security operations. Then we should be able to withdraw our troops. In any event, we will need to defeat this enemy in Iraq. I'm a little bit skeptical that this democracy thing will work in Iraq. It seems largely based on hope to me. Hope that Democracy will take root in Iraq and hope that it will spread to iraq's neighbors. That being said, the Iraqis have made it further on the Democracy road than I ever thought they could. Senator John McCain put it best when he pointed out, if we are defeated in Iraq this will only embolden the Jihadists and they will not stop with Iraq. There is to much killing going on. Most of it is being done by the terrorists. America is trying to defend itself against a very powerful adversary. Perhaps the methods America has employed in defending itself are imprudent. i think we need to take another lookd at some of our policies.

Let's talk about the WMD's in Israel. Peace

TEO...it wasn't illegal. Never has been and never will be.

It's illegal in the eyes of idiotic liberal princesses like yourself.

We've found WMD. He violated the terms of the No-Fly-Zone firing on our aircraft (an ACT OF WAR), etc, etc.

PERIOD, END OF STORY.

I'm sorry, you just lose on every facet of this argument.

This just in TEO, the United Nations does not dictate to the world whether a war is legal or not legal. They have NO STANDING to do so.

Of course you libs would like them to rule the world along with the Hague so it is no surprise that you relish in that corrupt institution for guidance. No surprise at all.

"If we were smart we could have used our clout to rally a true international coalition, with muslim faces at the spear-point,"

Hogwash! We tried every reasonable option available to get help from anyone we could. You don't just sit on your hands because those who ought to be on your side are being bribed to vote against you. Many other countries (I believe the major ones have been listed above) would NEVER have voted for this, for greed (hey, don't you run aalways try and act like that was OUR problem) and other sundry political reasons. Sure... they said it was for other, more "noble" reasons, but you don't really expect people on the take to run around saying so, do you?

At some point, we had to either go with what we had, or limp off with our tail between our legs. Which, of course, is the exact type of thing which led to 9/11 in the first place.

And as far as this war being illegal... we are a soveriegn nation. We don't require the permission of the UN or anybody else to go to war. The President HAD the permission of the Congress (even if spineless whiners tried to say later that they didn't really mean it when they voted to give him the authority). That line is a canard, and using it lowers your credibiltity.

So what if we have 80% of the troops there, that is totally irrelevent. We have the best military in the world, we should have most of the troops there.

Again, you want us to believe the US, Israel, Russia, the UN, France, Britain, etc, etc, all lied along with Bush.

Sorry, I'm not that stupid. It's a ridiculous notion. Especially now that we FOUND MORE WMD!!!

And even then you clowns deny it. Pathetic and sad.

Warriornation,

Just ask yourself why the DoD or Whitehouse hasn't made this into an issue, yet gave it to some third rate senator with failing numbers, don't be nieve, these things have been known about for a long time now, and were totally overlooked by this administration when they first came to light.

We signed onto the UN charter, and therefore we are held responsible to those laws, just like being a citizen of the US, you are expected to follow our laws, as a citizen of the world, you are expected to follow UN laws, it's not a hard concept, you just don't want to believe you guys weren't right. LOL

my point about us having 80% of the troops there goes to show just how much "help" we were really getting from the rest of the "coalition"; we have a majority of the troops there because no one else wanted to put their folks in harms way, why do you think the Brits are patrolling the much less volatile southern regions, as opposed to us being in the thick of it, right in the sunni-triangle, DUH!

We have already been over this BS, man. It doesn't matter who you believed, if they all thought the same thing, then so be it, but if you get bad info about a neighbor, go over to his house and shoot him, then come to find out he had no gun, and wasn't planning to come to your house, then you will get put into jail, double-time. Just because we can topple anyone, doesn't mean we should.

here is a nice little snippet, so please shut up about this non-starter:

"But defense officials said Thursday that the weapons were not considered likely to be dangerous because of their age, which they determined to be pre-1991.

Pentagon officials told NBC News that the munitions are the same kind of ordnance the U.S. military has been gathering in Iraq for the past several years, and "not the WMD we were looking for when we went in this time"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13480264/

LNC,

So by your logic, then Iran and Syria can invade Israel, because they have a legitimate reason to believe they are a threat to them, or visa-versa...you see what kind of worm-can you open up when you go pretending we have some sovereign authority to pre-emptively invade another nations with bad intelligence?

B. Poster,

Our clout on both a military and econmic level are second to no-one, atleast for the moment.

There is no real counterbalance to our hegemony, c'mon lets be realistic here, China may have numbers but their economy is so intrinsically linked to us being their trading partner, that economic MAD is not in their best interest.

Secondly, Russias aging nuclear threat is fang-less, you know this, the mere upkeep of those weapons and the outdated weapons systems are no match for us.

The natural resources we require is basically oil, and SA wouldn't let us slide in pre-emminence to another for fear they wouldn't get the same protections from a China or Russia, not to mention the JACOR ties we hold over their heads. The manufacturing base in America, while severely weakend, could be ramped up fairly quickly in the even of a major threat to our security; we may have to go without socks and underwear for a few months, but our basic needs could be retooled and food production would be diverted from export to domestic use...don't think we haven't had an economic contingency plan in place since the cold war.

I really don't see the "defensive" nature of invading Iraq, I do see a wanting to control the "lynch-pin" of the ME, it's been said through many centuries, that who controls the waters of the ME, control the whole of it, so I can see a tactical need to own it, but to really paint Saddam as a serious threat, more than and Iran or NK is silly, we invaded him because we knew if it went our way, we could basically cut off Iran from its neighbors to the south, and box them in like we did to the USSR.

Don't be nieve to think that the vast majority of countries didn't know the score when the US came knockin for partners, when we control the purse strings and debt load of an entire nation through IMF and World Bank loans, they know where their bread is buttered. A country like Uzbekistan or Rwanda, or Dominican Republic know that if they sent a few non-comabat troops to Iraq, to help bolster the US's assertion that this was a well backed invasion, then they would get their economic pat on the head, or fear retribution from the country who weilded the economic club. Ask yourself why there have only been American's as the President of the World Bank, and custom isn't a real answer.

Saddam was a very useful ally for a time, as a counterbalance to Islamic fundamentalism in Iran and the wider ME (funny though we were arming both of them). We gave him the tools he needed, and he assured us plentiful oil output. In the mid to late 70's we saw him as a counterbalance to Communism, as he turned more towards the west, the same idea of 'the enemy of our enemy is our friend' thinking. It may have been symbiotic on some levels, but he knew his "in" to western circles ran primarily through the US. When we realized what kind of guy we were dealing with, and after the news of the gassings made headlines in the US, we knew he would be a political liability, so the ties went underground, and we took a public stance of disgust with him. So in the end he was our useful idiot, instead of the Russians, and we could deal with that.

I guess if I were to indulge my cynical side, I would have to say that I see Iraq falling into a wider civil war, Sadr and Al-Sistani are biding their time, making it look like they are playing along with this democracy experiment, but a strong-man is all this regions has ever known, and I think that is where their tendancies will fall back into, I look for a military or police (or both) coup within 5 years...but who knows, I hope they pull this thing out.

The violence in Iraq is a homegrown thing, and no amount of US troops are going to stop the snowball at this point, the best we can hope to do, is remove most of our forces, let them have military "advisors" and give them a timetable for that withdrawl, make these power-brokers show us some of their cards, and lets see who we can support and who just wants to slice off their pound of flesh, in teh end the Kurds are going to get their own state, and I couldn't be surprised to see the South follow suit, the real question is if a loose federation can stand, or if we end up with another Balkanization.

TEO: Not everything in the documents brought out by Santorum was declassified, however, you are correct these WMD are nothing new. It does remind people that Iraq was in violation of the cease fire. This was one of the reasons cited for the invasion. I'm perfectly willing to admit the war was the wrong strategic decision, however, I'm skeptical that you will ever admit it was the correct decision, even if we should achieve a stable democratic Iraq that is allied with the USA. We don't need the UN's permission to defend ourselves. The other nations who signed onto the UN charter need to be sure its resolutions are enforced. The resolutions were not being enforced. The UN failed to stop Slobadan Milosivic, it failed to prevent genocide in Rwanda, it sits on its hands while killing goes on in Darfur that far exceeds the killing in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it failed to contain Saddam Hussein. The sanctions against Iraq had all but collapsed by early 2001. It has miserably failed in its duties. I think it should be abolished. The UN long ago forfieted its right to continue. It has no business dictating terms to the USA or Israel for that matter. "Not planning to come to your house," I'm not sure this is true. Saddam provided active assistance to terrorists who were targeting the US. This includes some of the terrorists who participated in the 1993 WTC bombing. He attempted to have former President George H.W. bush assainated. Iraq paid money to homicide bombers who targeted Israel. Israel is our most important ally. If the UN had presented a united front, war could have been avoided. Unfortunately some people placed their economic interests ahead of American national security. Part of the UN's problem is it places the interests of some of the worst tyrants in the world as equal to the Unitd States. A tyrannical regime cannot be regarded as morally equal to the US, who is the greatest and the freest nation the world has ever known. We don't even know for sure that Saddam did not have the stockpiles of WMD. The conventional wisdon is that he did not, however, the Syrian question remains unanswered. I suspect the Bush Administration is not overly eager to pursue the Syrian question because if the WMD is there it means we failed in one of our primary goals, however, should the Assad regime be removed and a pro-American government replaces it there may be some quite inquiries with the Syrian government. In other words, it helps neither the anti-war left nor the Bush administration. The ISG has said they want to complete the investigation. Hopefully we will complete this investigation.

I agree with you that what we found was probably not harmful, however, not experts agree. Sime have said they could be harmful. It sounds like the media is doing selective reporting again. It clearly was not what we went in to find.

Iran and Syria have no right to invade Israel. Israel is not a predatory country seeking to conquer its neighbors. Iran and Syria are predatory countries. Israel should act to defend itself. I would appreciate if the administration would take a stronger pro-Israel stance.

Third Eye Closed,

You need to stop before you make a complete fool of yourself. Nevermind...you already have.

The UN doesn't make laws. It passes resolutions, which are supposed to be binding on signature nations, but, as in the case of Iraq, many countries refuse to abide by these resolutions.

Therefore, you pathetic plea that the liberation of Iraq from the clutches of Saddam, in compliance with the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 and the 2002 Authorization for the use of Military Force against Iraq, is illegal is completely without merit. The only laws that the government of the United States is obligated to follow is the US Constitution and those made by Congress. Treaties and resolutions are not laws.

Having settled that, lets turn to the recent publication of information concerning the discovery of 500 chemical munitions by Coalition Forces. Contrary to your claims that the Bush Administration has known about these for years, the report was completed just this April by the military intelligence community. If you visit the Fox News web site, you can read the letter sent to Senator Santorum with the unclassified synopsis of the report.

As for the potency and date of production of the munitions, what difference does it make? Saddam was required to destroy or provide evidence that ALL WMD, WMD programs and equipment, and a variety of other prohibited weapons systems had been destroyed. The 500 WMD munitions, 500 tons of yellowcake, missiles exceeding UN mandated range, WMD delivery systems, chemical weapons labs, etc, etc, etc, are all proof that he was in material breach of both the Cease-fire and the 17 UN resolutions. If you took the time to read the various reports from the UN inspectors (which, by the way, were not in Iraq to search for WMD, but to certify that the WMD had been destroyed. It was the requirement of the Iraqis to produce the WMD or the proof that it had been destroyed), yo would learn that on at least five times, Iraq provided a "Full and Final" report of the WMD and WMD programs. Each and every time, the UN inspectors were given information that led them to additional stocks of WMD. When the UN inspectors finally left Iraq, literally tons of WMD were unaccounted for, including; sarin, VX, mustard gas, anthrax, and botulism. We still don't know what happened to the missing WMD. We do now know were 500 of the missing WMD munitions are. We have found them. It wouldn't surprise me if we find hundreds more in the years ahead.

What does this all mean? That the actions to enforce regime change in Iraq was the right thing to do. Saddam still possessed WMD. The WMD programs and equipment were still intact. He was waiting for the UN inspectors to leave so he could restart his programs.

Yet you still think that "Bush lied". Sorry, pal. We knew all along that he didn't. Try to get over your denial and accept the fact that you were wrong, the President was right, and get on with your life.

One last thing, I take great exception to your insults to conservative as being anti-American and un-patriotic. I, and a number of other posters on this blog, have devoted years of service to this country, under Presidents from either party. I personally have been serving my entire adult life, over 32 years. You, on the other hand, probably have never served in the military, otherwise you wouldn't make stupid assumptions about WMD capabilities, military strategy, and how the military operates.

My point is that legality is not the issue.

In Iran and Syria's considerations on the subject of invading Israel, the legality of it don't enter their heads. Can they succeed is much more an issue, and to a lesser extent, what kind of reprisals would they suffer if they did so. Israel has a pretty powerful military in its own right, and it has powerful and dedicated allies, to boot. Those in comparison to their own abilities and resources are what Iran and Syria would consider.

We have no more LEGAL authority over them than the UN or its members have over us. What we have is diplomacy (at times a cool head to reason things through with other nations, at others nothing more noble than the ability to somehow bribe them), or threat of economic or military repercussions.

So, again, to call this an ILLEGAL war because as many other nations as we would have liked (and should have been able to count on, but could not for their own nefarious purposes) were willing to back us is a nonsensical statement. It simply does not apply.

And as far as how they would be judged afterwards vis a vis Israel's threat to them... Israelis are primarily a peaceful people who happen to be in a position of extreme danger by their neighbors. If they no longer had to worry about being attacked, no one would have to worry about an attack from them. Even their "offensive" military actions are only to eliminate threats to themselves... not simply because (as the Islamists tend to) they hate them and consider them less than human.

And if Israel's neighbors do (or claim to) fear them, it is because of the propaganda levelled at them by those in power in those nations, not a fault of Israel's, and we should be working to address that problem, rather than playing into those oppressive leaders hands by adopting thier logic and shifting the blame to Israel.

TEO

I dind't see your last post that was a response to me. I'm going to attempt address a few of these issues and I will try to be brief.

Our clout on an economic and military level is significant no question about that but second to none, I don't think so. I don't think Russia's nuclear arsenal is fangless. They have upgraded it in recent years. Recently they have tested missles that can evade a missle defense system. Russia has the largest and most advanced nuclear arsenal in the world and they are the enemy behind all of our major enemies. Far from being toothless, this is our most dangerous enemy in the world. This enemy is fully capable of defeating the USA and should be treated as such. This enemy only grows stronger literally by the day. I'm not surprised you missed these reports. If the US is some sort of hyper power the country becomes much easier to vilify. No wonder this term seems to have originated in Europe. Unfortunately the American main stream media picked up on this spin. Such nonsense does Americans a disservice, as it obscures the threats they face. Russia and China have conducted military excercizes recently. According to them, they were planning for the invasion of an ethincally diverse country. Given their hostility to the US, they are probably planning an invasion of the US. An ethincally diverse country sounds like the US. Definitely any major American city would qualify. They don't need MAD when they can fully control the US and have it for their taking. The alliance between Russia and China is even more dangerous than Russia acting alone. This enemy is fully capable of defeating us. Military power second to none? While the US is powerful, its power is not second to none. On the world stage we have three major powers. They are Russia, China, and the USA who are approximately equal. They each possess different advantages and disadvantages over each other. I refer to them as the "big three."

We do import a large amount of oil from SA. If this were cut off, this would hurt us very badly. My cosnidered opinion is China or India would step in to fill the void, should something happen to the USA. The loss of Saudi oil would hurt us more than it would SA. The leaders of SA and America know this. If oil sales to the US were cut off, it would affect the Saudi royals and the average Saudi who is already poor might feel a slight pinch but this would be DEVESTATING to the USA. Saudi Arabia would recover in a relatively short amount of time. The royals might have to sell a few of their private jets but what are a few jets when you can afford doezns if not hundreds. The American government knows we need oil. This is why the elected leaders who continue to block drilling for oil off the coasts of CA and FL and those who continue blocking ANWR are a disgrace. If we increased our own production we could help ourselves significantly. Btw, according to an uncle of mine who was a manufacturing manager, who retired in the late 80s or early 90s informed me in the mid 90s it would take years to ramp up our manufacturing base. It seems to have diminished further since then. I think we would be looking at a lead time of years to re build the manufacturing base not months. I'm not sure the government is prepared for such a contingency. The "shopping mall regime" thinks the cold war is over. That being said, if you had a contingency plan, you might not want to reveal it to eneimies or potential enemies.

The terrorists who are operating in Iran and the middle east along with their marxists allies are a survival threat to the United States. If we could replace the government of Iraq with a government that is favorable to the US perhaps we could cut off Iran and eliminate a major threat to American national security. It is highly unlikley that we are going to own it. We already transferred soverignty to Iraq. We still handle their security needs but those are being transferred to Iraqis. The defensive nature of the war is to eliminate the threat posed by Iraq and to box Iran in before they could threaten us further. Saddam might have acted as a counter weight to Iran but he had become hostile to the US by throwing his lot in with terrorists among other things. He could no longer be trusted. The US was Saddam's useful idiot for a while. As the Reagan official said, it was a pity both Iraq and Iran could not lose. I suspect Iraq was chosen ahead of Iran or NK because it was easier to get a coaliton together to deal with the threat. Saddam's larges supporter was Russia not the US. I don't think I have said Iraq under Saddam was as powerful as NK or Iran. Far from boxing in Iran we appear to be the ones being boxed in. Islamic Extremists and Marxists are closely allied. Marxists seem to be gaining strength in Central and South America. A close ally of Venezuela and Cuba has a real chance to win the presidential election in Mexico. Also, the American military is surronded on two sides in Iraq by Syria and Iran.

When the US came knocking for partners, the countries being asked knwe that to accept they would be opening themslves up for terrorists attacks. These attacks would hurt them far more than failing to pay back Uncle Sam. In spite of this, they chose to help us where they could. The appropiate response is a hearty "thank you." I'm sure the US gave them something. I hope we did. They took an enoromous risk, however, to take the risk, on some level, those governments understood the danger. The IMF and the World Bank have the words "World" and "International" in them because they are international bodies. I suspect an American has been the president because Americans are among the world's leaders in areas such as finance, engineering, and other service industries. In other words, these bodies select the person who they think will represent their interests. Also, I suspect these guys are selected from the Corporate/Wall Street world. Such individuals are notorious for not following an America first mentality. If he didn't look out for the interests of all the participants they will likely, get rid of them. If the US abused its power here, it would be fairly easy for the aggrieved party to take it up with the UN general assembly or the WTO or other groups such as this. They have tremendous leverage, especially when they work together. Again, if we paint America as some sort of hyper power it is not only false but it becomes much easier to vilify the country. This serves the interests of Marxists and those within the media who sympathize with them.

Your cynical side seems like a very real possibility. I think it is highly unlikely that Democracy will succeed in Iraq. That being said, they have made it far further down this road than I ever thought they could!! Like you, I hope the Iraqis can pull this off. Most importantly I hope the new Iraq will be allied with us and will help us in the braoder war against Uslamic Extremism.

The insurgency is largely a homegrown thing. It consists of former regime elements along with their terrorists allies. If we withdraw now, it seems very likely that the former regime elements along with their terrorists allies will regain control of the country, the enemy would be emboldened and we would be in worse shape then we are currently in. When Senator McCain pointed out that this enemy would not stop with Iraq, I think he nailed it. At a minimum, before withdrawl we would need to get some kind of security guarantees from the former regime elements.

"If we were smart we could have used our clout to rally a true international coalition, with muslim faces at the spear-point,"

Hogwash! We tried every reasonable option available to get help from anyone we could. You don't just sit on your hands because those who ought to be on your side are being bribed to vote against you. Many other countries (I believe the major ones have been listed above) would NEVER have voted for this, for greed (hey, don't you run aalways try and act like that was OUR problem) and other sundry political reasons. Sure... they said it was for other, more "noble" reasons, but you don't really expect people on the take to run around saying so, do you?

At some point, we had to either go with what we had, or limp off with our tail between our legs. Which, of course, is the exact type of thing which led to 9/11 in the first place.

And as far as this war being illegal... we are a soveriegn nation. We don't require the permission of the UN or anybody else to go to war. The President HAD the permission of the Congress (even if spineless whiners tried to say later that they didn't really mean it when they voted to give him the authority). That line is a canard, and using it lowers your credibiltity.

TEO,

Where in heck do you get your history from? In the 70's we viewed Saddam as a counter-balance to communism? For crying out loud, he was a SOVIET client! His army was armed with T-72's, AK-47's, SAM, Migs...not things found in the US arsenal...and what wasn't US, was French. Brazil provided more military hardware to Saddam than the US and Britain combined.

I begin to understand why you see things as you do - you just don't know enough about the subject to come to the correct conclusions.

A-10,

you're not real bright.

"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."

--spelled out pretty much as clear as you can spell it out, any treaties we sign (which the UN charter is one of) are SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND!

Im sure we will continue to find pre '91 munitions here and there, but if your own president isn't making political hay out of it, what makes you think it makes a hill of beans to anyone? Read the quote regarding the information, that your own government is stating:

"But defense officials said Thursday that the weapons were not considered likely to be dangerous because of their age, which they determined to be pre-1991.

Pentagon officials told NBC News that the munitions are the same kind of ordnance the U.S. military has been gathering in Iraq for the past several years, and "not the WMD we were looking for when we went in this time"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13480264/

I thank you for your past and present service, but if you aren't supporting bringing the boys and girls home from a war we don't know how to get out of, you are anti-troop and anti-american, way to leave them to twist in the wind.

LNC,

You're ignoring the fact that Israel has WMDs, so by our logic, then Iran and Syria could invade and claim they fear imminent threat of attack.

It is not meant to be fact, but to show how broad our actions allow just about anyone to paint anyone else as an 'imminent threat'.

By our own standards it doesn't take too much to engage in a unilateral invasion of a sovereign country.

TEO...the White House fought the release of these documents. I also have to laugh that you keep saying it's just Santorum...why don't you mention that Rep. Hoekstra released these too...or does that not fit into your tin foil hat conspiracy?

Mark,

Read history yourself, in '76 he was executing communists, where do you read your history?

Don't doubt my grasp of history, you aren't even bright enough to google a little history of Saddam, you just repeat whatever talking point Mehlman or Rush is spewing that day. So eat it!

here is some of your own drivel who say the exact same thing:

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/4/10/205859.shtml

Warriornation,

What are you talking about man, are you smoking crack?

Who cares if Hoekstra was there, he is in a completely safe district, he doesn't care if the fallout comes back on him.

read the quotes from the government, they knew this stuff was going to be found, this wasn't what they were looking for when they said he had WMDs.

"But defense officials said Thursday that the weapons were not considered likely to be dangerous because of their age, which they determined to be pre-1991.

Pentagon officials told NBC News that the munitions are the same kind of ordnance the U.S. military has been gathering in Iraq for the past several years, and "not the WMD we were looking for when we went in this time"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13480264/

B. Poster,

I thank you for your thoughtful rebut, I don't want to shirk a response, but I don't have time to get all my quotes in order right now, it's friday and we are slammed on the phones, I will respond later this afternoon, if that is alright.

Thanks again for the response.

Third Eye Open

That's fine. I may not be able to discuss this further until sometime next week.

Here's the thing you bushbots don't want to admit: the UN sanctions worked. No post-91 WMDs have been found, the closest we've come is evidence of "WMD program-related activities", which apparently is just a desire to have WMDs.

Say what you want about the UN, (and there's a lot of bad to be said), the sanctions kept Saddam from reconstituting his WMD programs.

Of course, you would say that the sanctions were about to be dropped. My knowledge of UN rules is a little rusty, but doesn't it take a unanimous decision by the Security Council members to drop sanctions? Aren't we a permanent member of the Security Council? I doubt that any US gov't would vote to drop sanctions.

All in all, if you ask people now if this war was worth it, given that Saddam did not have the capabilities the administration said he did, the answer is a definitive no. Must really piss you off when the UN is useful, huh?

TEO,

I know he executed communists...sort of like a Stalinist executing a Trotskyite...not exactly like he was an enemy of totalitarian control of society in order to create a utopian world...

And he was, no matter how you slice it, a Soviet client...so, the main commies in the world didn't have a problem with Saddam offing the odd Iraqi commie. It is a very strange leftwing myth that Saddam was ever aligned with the United States...

Steve: The term that the Iraq Survey group used for the collapsing sanctions was "a defacto end to sanctions." Sadam was in striking distance of an end to sanctions by 2000. You can look up de facto in the dictionary. Essentially what it means is we would have had a piece of paper that said there were sanctions but the paper would have been worthless. In substance there would have been no sanctions. In other words, it would not have mattered how we voted. We simply lack the power to unilatrally enforce sanctions. With all due respect, you are over estimating American power and under estimating the power of its enemies. This point does not, in and of itself, mean that the Iraq war was the strategically corret decision. For better or worse, the soundness or lack thereof of the decision may not be known for some time.

Failure to adhere to left wing talking points does not make someone a "bushbot." This is the term that used when leftists wish to belittle their critics. The "right" has a simillar term. This is "Bush derangement syndrone" or "BDS."

Mark,

Saddam was a national-socialist, like Hitler, the philosophy is an anathema to communism.

USSR was approaching many states, trying to get a foothold militiristically, but Saddam turned on them as soon as we stepped in to fill that gap, so he was much our client state than Russias.

We were providing military technology and anthrax to him, not to mention the little matter of Rummy making a jaunt to go get face-time with him, we were assisting him in fighting Iran, how exactly were we not aligned with him?

Mark said: "And he [Saddam] was, no matter how you slice it, a Soviet client...so, the main commies in the world didn't have a problem with Saddam offing the odd Iraqi commie. It is a very strange leftwing myth that Saddam was ever aligned with the United States..."

Actually, according to my reading of history, Saddam was taking a page from the Nasser playbook and pitting the Soviets against the west. Like Nasser before him (as well as Assad in Syria), he was never a client of either side. Rather, he used them to the best of his ability and, like Nasser, to great effect. In fact, similar things are still happening all over the Middle East. And in fact, we're seeing a resurgence of it. Except this time around it's Russia and China playing the part of the USSR. And if the Indians have any savvy, I'm guessing they're going to get involved as well -- at least once the nuclear pact with the US is signed. In geopolitics I think one of the worst mistakes anyone can make is to assume that any other entity is either friend or foe, "with us or against us". In actuality, all entities will fall somewhere in between.

I think it is fair to say that Saddam used both the Russians and the Americans where and when he could. If we look at the weapons sales, Saddam bought most of his weapons from Russia but other factors would need to be considered. I think it has been said that international alliances will shift, however, national interests remain constant. Any support to Saddam was a mistake, however, the context of this support was the need to contain Iran. The media has done a good job of pointing out how America provided some assistance to Saddam, however, they have not done a good job of supplying the context within which the decision was made. I don't think politicians are very interested in discussing the context. It would reveal that the United States was Saddam's useful idiot.

We were his useful idiot up until about the time of the first Gulf War. As said previously, most of his weapons were Russian made. After the Gulf War, Russia was his chief supplier. American sales of weapons to Iraq were only about 1% and this all occurred before the first gulf war. Again, this was a mistake. Nations and people can and do learn from mistakes. i hope we learned but I'm concerned we have not.

We were his useful idiot up until about the time of the first Gulf War. As said previously, most of his weapons were Russian made. After the Gulf War, Russia was his chief supplier. American sales of weapons to Iraq were only about 1% and this all occurred before the first gulf war. Again, this was a mistake. Nations and people can and do learn from mistakes. I hope we learned but I'm concerned we have not.

Rico and B.,

My whole point in even discussing Saddam's relationship to us, is to provide an example of the bad decisions we make, in backsing some pretty horrible horses.

Our economic/security interests most of the time usurp our moral obligation to do no evil [praphrase].

IMO, we would be better served in leaving the propping up, and bringing down of nations to their own people, but time after time, we insist we know best, and our proteges more often than not, tend to be pretty bad guys. [taliban, OBL, SA, Azerbaijan, over-throw of the Shah, etc.]

I understand that the world isn't a cut and dry place, but i think we need to learn from our mistakes, and stop believeing a petty-tyrant, with enough support from us, won't become a powerful one when the planets are aligned.

but I could be wrong

TEO,

Geesh! Still on the grainy photo of Rumsfeld with Saddam? For crying out loud, he was on a diplomatic mission to the Middle East and met with leaders of a lot of nations, Saddam just one of them...

You are really out to lunch on this - but, then again, so are all critics of the War on Terrorism...

TEO

I agree we need to learn from our mistakes to. Sometimes if a goverment threatens us we may need to remove it. It is not always going to be easy to do. The standard procedure often times is to assist those in the country who are hostile to the government. It might be a workable strategy to support groups within Iran who are hostile to the Islamic Extremists who run the country. Unfortunately I don't the CIA or the State Department has the stomach for such a thing, at this time. I could be wrong of course. The Iran along with its other terrorist and Marxist allies pose a survival threat to the USA. Time is running out to deal with this.

Hey wingbats:

New intel report reignites Iraq arms fight

By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer Thu Jun 22, 8:42 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Hundreds of chemical weapons found in
Iraq were produced before the 1991
Gulf War and probably are so old they couldn't be used as designed, intelligence officials said Thursday.

Two lawmakers — Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., and House Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich. — on Wednesday circulated a one-page summary of a military intelligence report that says coalition forces have recovered about 500 munitions with mustard or sarin agents, and more could be discovered around Iraq. "We now have found stockpiles," Santorum asserted.

But intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitive nature, said the weapons were produced before the 1991 Gulf War and there is no evidence to date of chemical munitions manufactured since then. They said an assessment of the weapons concluded they are so degraded that they couldn't now be used as designed.

They probably would have been intended for chemical attacks during the
Iran-Iraq War, said David Kay, who headed the U.S. weapons-hunting team in Iraq from 2003 until early 2004.

He said experts on Iraq's chemical weapons are in "almost 100 percent agreement" that sarin nerve agent produced from the 1980s would no longer be dangerous.

"It is less toxic than most things that Americans have under their kitchen sink at this point," Kay said.

And any of Iraq's 1980s-era mustard would produce burns, but it is unlikely to be lethal, Kay said.

Asked about the potential danger to U.S. troops, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said: "They are weapons of mass destruction. They are harmful to human beings. And they have been found."

The newly declassified military intelligence report was released Wednesday by National Intelligence Director John Negroponte. Santorum and Hoekstra had urged him to release report this week during congressional debates on Iraq.

The senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee questioned the timing of the report's release. "What worries me is that the intelligence community — Ambassador Negroponte in particular — may be playing a partisan role in the 2006 election," California Rep. Jane Harman (news, bio, voting record) said.

Hoekstra said the document is not a "smoking gun." But he hinted that the chemical agents could be significant because they may have been added to the discovered artillery shells after the first Gulf War. He noted that one of the declassified findings says the munitions could be lethal.

"David Kay says anything produced prior to 1991 is not lethal anymore, so what is the discrepancy here?" Hoekstra said. "I am 100 percent sure if David Kay had the opportunity to look at the reports that describe these things, he would agree with the finding that ... these things are lethal and deadly," Hoekstra said.

Intelligence officials said the munitions were found in ones, twos and maybe slightly larger collections over the past couple of years. One official conceded that these pre-Gulf War weapons did not pose a threat to the U.S. military before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. They were not maintained or part of any organized program run by Iraqi leader
Saddam Hussein.

There is no evidence that insurgents have found the chemical munitions. But one official said that insurgents have improvised conventional weapons, so they could apply similar creativity with the vintage weapons.

B,

I am still wary on "removing" governments, it sets a bad precedent when we go it alone.

Now what I think would be in our best interest, would be to focus our attention at reviving, and reforming the UN, that isn't going to be done with a guy like Bolton, who much prefers making politcal hay back home, than really addressing the dysfunction with the institution.

When we turned back Saddam in '91, we had overwhelming support, it was obvious what needed to be done, but this time around we went in without letting the world know why we were doing what we were doing. The rest of the world, and even here at home saw the flaws in making a decision to leave Afghanistan, in little more of a better position than we found it, and focused on a guy who was back-burner to most of the rest of the world, we wasted a golden opportunity to build Afghanistan into a flourishing democracy, and instead wanted to prove our mettle in Iraq. IMO, this was the flaw that lead us to look more like vigilanties than the heroes we should have been for bringing down a regime like the Taliban.

Do you remember the students in Tehran, having a candle-light vigil after 9/11...it's a shame we couldn't capitalize more on those emotions, instead of emotions of anger and revenge.

Aarontime

According to the summary that was released the weapons are potentially hazardous and lethal. How is this reconciled with the statement that they could not be used as intended? These are artilery shells. I'm not a military expert but it seems artilery shells are fired from a gun of some sort generally at a military. They probably could no longer be used in this manner, however, as an IED they might be effective. I suspect the WMD component of this weapon would be no more than a minor inconvenience to a military target, however, it may be a different situation if used against a civilian target. When a Pentagon suggests they would be ineffective, he may be refering to a military target. I'm not sure. It is my understanding the Senators who asked for more of this classified report to be released. My hunch is the unclassified reports were not declassified is because they contain information that would be unhelpful to both the Administration and to the Democrats. It is clear that these weapons are not the ones we were looking for when we and our coalition allies invaded Iraq. This finding is nothing new to anyone who has followed the war and it in no way bolsters the administration. At least the parts that were declassified, do nothing to help the Administration.

B.

The part I find most hilarious is the assertion that this might be embarrasing to China, Russia, and France. What in the world would this administration gain from not shining a spotlight of impropriety on them...wouldn't that help to bolster the case they were holding out in the SecCouncil for their own gains?

To be honest, it just doesn't make sense.

TEO...why is it that so many things don't make sense to you? Perhaps it's user error on your part.

TEO

I agree removing governments may not alwasy be in our best long range interests. They meddle in our affairs as well. It goes both ways. We do need to work on our image around the world. Countries such as Venezuela and Mexico grow stronger and more beligerent litteraly by the day. These countries are alot closer to home than Iraq, Iran, or NK. Someday soon we will probably need help to deal with these threats. The reasons for invading Iraq are spelled out in the resolution authorizing the use of force. It should have been abundantly clear why we were doing what we did. We did not do this alone. Clearly we would have liked a bigger coalition. Over 20 countries assisted us in various ways along the way, in whatever way they could. To say we did not have as big of a coaliton as we should have is a valid argument. To suggest we should have tried harder or done something different to build a larger coalition is a valid arguemnt. To say we did it alone is not a valid argument. It is demeaning to countries who took an enormous risk to help us. The appropiate response is a hearty thank you.

The UN needs to be reformed or abolished. Perhaps the methods being used by John Bolton are flawed. So far all I know he has accomplished is to make folks madder than they already were. Prior to John Bolton we were allowing the UN to walk all over us. We need someone in there who will stand up for our rights. Mark Malloch Brown, a top offical at the UN and an aide to Kofi Annan, recently launched into an absolutely vicious attack against Americans. By responsding to this John Bolton attempted to stand up for our rights. Perhaps the methods are flawed but to accuse him of trying to make "politcial hay" seems unfair to me. I assert the UN is so hostile to him because he is shinning the light on their criminal activities. John Bolton job has been to represent America before the UN and to reform the organization. Like all leaders, he should be evaluated based on whether or not he is successful.

As I've said before invading Iraq may have been a strategic error. The Jihadis have made this the frontline in the war against the US. If the Jihadis realize their goals are not attainable, it may be possible to negotiate a settlement with them and the former regime elements, as well as their other Marxist allies. Before withdrawing from Iraq, we will need to get some kind of security guarantees from them and some sort of mechnisim will need to be in place to make sure the Jihadis and their allies abide by the terms of the treaty. I'm not worried about us abiding by the terms of the hypotheical peace settlement. The international oversight on America will be intense, as it always is.

I wish we could have capitalized more on the candle light vigils in Iran. There seem to be significant elements within Iran who don't like the the current leadership. Our best chance might be to help them over throw the regime. Unfortunately the CIA, the State Department, and the Bush administration do not seem to have the stomach to do this. As for revenge, this works both ways. Some people around the world could have tried harder to work with us rather than engaging in Anti americanism. Iraq certainly did not seem to a back burner issure to Russia, france, or China. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the decision to invade Iraq may have been a strategic error. The final outcome might not be known for some time. Finally, know this, if you work with internal dissidents to overthrow the Iranian government, I think it is highly likely that these dissidents will turn on us someday.

TEO

Now to address your most recent post to me, where do I begin? I'm tempted to simply second what warriornation wrote. France is probably not much of a threat at this time. The main danger is that France will fall to Islamic Extremists and they would gain control of France's nuclear arsenal. As for Russia and China, the administration and the American government have been trying to go through the UN to diffuse the situation. Russia and China clearly seem to me to be hostile to the US. We are trying to get them to help with Iran and we NK. It is dangerous to go out of your way to anger two of the most powerful nations in the world. Unfortunately, I don't think the Administration or the American government has come to grips with the level of support terrorists are receiving from Russia and China. We are trying to use diplomacy to difuse the situation. To expose Russia and China now would eliminate any possibility of getting them to help us with Iran or NK and most of the UN would side with Russia and China. As I'm writing this, either Russia or China are fully capable of defeating the US in a war. Acting together they are even more dangerous. I can think of several countries who would side with them against the US. Having written this, if it were me making the decisions I would expose Russia and China right now. The only thing that would stop me is if I thought we were not ready for the war that would likely ensue or if we think we might be able to use diplomacy to diffuse the situation. I suspect war with them may be inevitable. I don't have all of the facts regarding American military readiness. From what I do know, I don't think the American government is currently ready to meet this threat. I pray and hope I am wrong of course. To sum up, we are trying to get these countries to help us and if they were exposed we would have no possibilty of getting them to help us and it might even lead to active war. This would only serve to strengthen countries such as Iran, NK, and the Iraqi insurgency. I find nothing hilarious about this.

TEO

My last post seems to have been lost. I don't think it was coherent any way. The problem with exposing Russia and China is many fold. 1.)They are hostile to us. 2.)Either Russia or China acting alone is fully capable of defeating the US in an open war. Acting together they are even more dangerous. From what I know about our military preparedness, I don't think we are currently ready to meet this threat. 3.)They have shown a dangerous closeness to the countries, such as Iran, NK, and Venezeula who are among the greatest threats to us in the world. 3.) We are trying to get them to help us in dealing with the above mentioned countries. In the case of NK, we are trying to get China to help us. In the case of Iran, we are trying to get Russia to help us. 4.) If we exposed them this would eliminate any possibility of getting them to help us and most of the UN would likely to side with Russi and China anyway. This would serve to strengthen NK and Iran, making our job even more difficult than it already is. 5.) Putting it all together exposing Russia and China would mean losing any hope of getting them to help us and it would destroy any chance at reaching a diplomatic solution with them any time in the foreseeable future and it runs the risk of leading to a war that frankly we don't seem ready to fight and we don't want to fight it. Even if we could win, the casulties on all sides would be enormous. The risks of exposing the treachery of Russia and China, from a diplomatic stand point, semm to out weigh any benefits we might get from this.

I think I need to clarify an earlier post. Earlier in the thread it was asked why the President of the World Bank has always been an American. My specualation may well be correct but the official reasons cited are that the president has always been an American is because of long standing informal tradition. The USA is the largest stockholder in the organization of 184 countries. It should get the lead role in the management of this entity, as the largest shareholder in what appears to be a volunatray organization. The staff and management are drawn from around the world. Also, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank compliment one another. By tradition the head of the IMF has always been a European. This helps to hold both parties accountable. In addition, the World bank has an independent body that any party who feels they have been mistreated can file a complaint with and have it investigated. It seems highly probable that if the non European members wanted to change long standing traditions they could do so.

A DOD "spokesman" said:
"....and not the WMDs for which this country went to war."

Well, for being in the DOD, he sure didn't pay much attention to any of the events leading to the invasion of Iraq. Quite aside from the question of who made him "spokesman" anyway (you have to think an OFFICIAL 'spokesman' would have the facts..) he was evidently not aware of the many many many reasons for the invasion given so many many many times by the President, by the Congress, and even by his own boss, the Secretary of Defense.

So we have an anonymous person claiming to be a DOD "spokesman" who just happens to be mouthing the offical LEFT position, which never had any relationship to the truth in the first place---and this is convincing? Yeah, to the blindly faithful of the Loony Left.

We have been finding WMD all along, in various places, in various amounts, in various concentrations, in various forms. And we knew that unless John F'n Kerry was in the forefront of an advance and the absolute first person on the site of a MASSIVE cache of clearly labeled WMD, and never let them out of his sight till they were tested and identified by Left-approved scientists, and the canisters all stated that they were made in 2002, the Left would deny that they existed, deny that Sadaam made them, deny that they were found in Iraq, etc. Even with the leading Lefties on the scene, it would be claimed that they were somehow 'planted' in a giant 'conspiracty'.

Hey, that's part of what the D in Democrat stands for..
D nial
D lusion
D feat